Monthly Archives: June 2009

I’m currently contributing a short, light-hearted political column to Hong Kong Time Out Magazine. Below is the uncut, original version of my latest piece…

Making your protest count
Either the authorities in HK have highly questionable numeracy skills, or their protester head counts are based on political rather than mathematical reckoning. The Alliance claimed over 150,000 attended the moving and sombre 6/4 commemoration in Victoria Park, whilst the police gave a laughable estimate of 62,800. The tally for the previous Sunday’s march to LEGCO was put at 4,700 by the organisers and 8,000 by the authorities. This disparity happens every time and the two figures never match. One has to wonder if the number is just plucked randomly out of the air whilst the officers chomp on donuts, or whether they deliberately calculate a fraction of the organiser figure.

I recently started writing a short, light-hearted political column for Hong Kong Time Out Magazine. Below is the uncut, original version…

Bright ideas

In what are meant to be times of economic austerity and eco-awareness, the vulgar practice of retail premises being lit up like a Macanese casino all night continues to spread, despite campaigning from local NGOs.

One has to wonder how many customers of Louis Vuitton, Dunhill and Coach are going to be around at 4am on a weeknight, and how many of them will be suddenly convinced that their lives are lacking yet another preposterous handbag. Unless Armani are somehow trying to capture that key ‘drunkard-loony-and/or-homeless’ demographic, it really seems unlikely that their target audience are going to be eyeing up their over-lit billboards.

In June 2009, I attended a kite rally, protest and candlelit vigil to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. It was the biggest attendance of the annual vigil since it began, with over 150,000 Hong Kongers turning out to remember the innocent protesters killed by their own government.